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tv   [untitled]    December 7, 2012 12:00pm-12:30pm PST

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personal information. she has advanced directives, medical records, and so on that is not accessible to everybody in the network, but some of the members. there are stories and photos, a place where people can celebrate today, how to share memories, have the good times that were the essence in the past and in the present. you might be asking yourself this question, if you are a facebook user, how is different from facebook. it is what we called open social networking, and it is designed to create many relationships. this is closed and personal, it is an intimate space.
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i have a daughter that was close to 1000 facebook friends. it has no advertisements. no data mining, it is private and secure. it bridges the formal and informal world of care and support. and what we have discovered is that people that use a, what they get out of that is what we call the network of fact. we have jill in the center of the network and you can see on the upper side where you have a health care provider to put information into her fault about her health care. if you have heard daughter using the mobile application to update people on the go. you have the neighbor that tax the schedule to see when he is going shopping -- this is an
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illustration of a network of fact or network model of the good life. the neighbor says, always check on line to see what joe needs. the physician's assistant says it is easy to share the test results. the personal care worker says i've posted on the loose handrail and they handled it right away. her sister says, i am part of a team now, what a relief. out of this idea of the network of fact, one is that this is what joe wants. this is her key to a good life. her network is actually her gateway to a good life and her ability to stay home.
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and we will launch a touch screen interface for those that want to connect through video. i want to share with you a few things that users are saying at telling us about their experience. 91% says that it helps them share information. that is the number one thing that people providing support to us want. 80% says that it strengthens connections. how can using something on-line actually make us feel closer or more connected to our friends and family? out it works, the more connected the leafy zero with the more information we have. if any of you have grandchildren living far away, if they know that you have recently been to the theater or play cards with friends or had a
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family dinner, they feel more connected to you and telling the you have been to the doctor and all of those things. this is the way that technology can help people) distant connect with us. 75% of our users say that we work with others to provide care and support. today, ties is three years old, and we have learned a lot about lessons with the good life. our number-one lesson is that no one should have to face thelma's, disability, or caregiving on their own. there are growing numbers -- why we did pay attention to this, constantly reaching out in creating our own networks, keeping them informed is one major reason, there are more and
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more of us living alone. 40% of people over 60 live alone. we are more vulnerable in terms of how we are living and we are more vulnerable because those of us are living with chronic and complex diseases. that can lead and capacity to it is a very positive thing to do. what we might think of as our desire is for the company and so on, our health is a social affair. our health is intimately tied with our connections and support. when we have a good network around us, we heal more quickly, we live longer. and when we are isolated, it impacts things like hospital rea admissions, the number of
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doctors' visits, the capacity to handle stress. what we want to really focus on in terms of the number-one lesson is that no one should have to face these things alone. and when we consciously reached out to create a network, we are better off. let's think about the people that want to be involved in our life. this is really our loved ones, sons, daughters, her friends. what do they want? since we are facing challenges, they want information that they want to share and care. they definitely want to be involved. there is no question that our family members and friends want to be involved. and some of the challenges that
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they are facing is that many of the people that might be providing care for us are working. the number of working care givers has tripled in the last 15 years. and what they need to be able to share is to be able to share the care. the caregivers, the people that love us, our sons and daughters and family members, if they are caring for us alone, their health deteriorates. they often have to leave their jobs and take a reduction in tom. -- in income. and how important this is in terms of our thinking about the future and creating a connected network is that fully, for 80% of people that live in their own home and receiving care, this is not by the way, what most of us
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want. to live and stay in our homes and in our own space. but for people that received in home support of some kind, and they would not be able to remain in their home without the involvement of friends and family. the critical reason to be thinking about what our loved ones want. they want to be engaged and our job is to support them to do that. what about the young ones? what does the future want? not just the young ones, but all the people cheering for us in the future want to use technology. 77 percent said it will save them time, 74% believe it will relieve stress. and there is a generation coming up that will expect to be kept
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informed and make connections on line. my nephew just sent me a video from vancouver having a skype conversation with his cousins in england. and as our last lesson, we want to help each other. i want to reinforce this. a part of the reluctance is this fear that people are going to say no. the recent community vitality report says that three-quarters of us extend to a family, friends, and neighbors. this man's name is charles, 86 years old. he has an early stage of dementia. he starts the network, he invites the sisters. why in sydney and one in singapore. he also invites the neighbors.
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they refer to it as the neighbor lady. she says, thank goodness that you ask. i have been worried about charles. and creating that meaningful exchange. let me share a new idea or a new term that i am using thinking about this idea of staying connected and having a good life. this is an idea that i am calling -- this is a little picture of dale, somebody that has a f and hisuture -- that has done his future-proofing.
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this is what has happened to him when he went into the hospital. his daughter of everyone with one message. there was emergency contact, care preferences hall facing the vault so that the care providers know what to do. and the supporters know what his wishes are and they can share tips and ideas and emotional support to him. dale is future-proofed. pieces of this idea staying connected to a good life is about having some peace of mind as we think about the future. i encourage you all about what makes a good life for you. i encourage you to reach out to others to make it happen. it won't happen in isolation, there is no independence without
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tinterdependence. when we reach out to others, everyone benefits. reaching out and making connections for a good life provide peace of mind for you, but for every one that loves you as well. if there is one final message i would like to leave you with, it is that we are, quite simply, better together. if any of you are interested in learning a little bit more and seeing a live demonstration, i will be over in the south court this afternoon and in the lunch break. i would be delighted to chat with you. in the meantime, thank you so much. [applause] >> oh, come on. give vicki camack a bigger hand
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than that. [applause] that's vicki. whoa. thank you, vicki. honestly, vicki, i like that ties network, just the idea of all the connections. a personal and isolated in formation, thank you very much. there is a gentleman i will bring up and get out of the way, i wanted to mention something about the news business and technology. hopefully you watched television. our business is changing by the day, we depend on technology. i would feel naked without my phone. i would feel naked without my ipad. even when i am on television, i am talking by e-mail with people just like you. if dave, do you know about this event? this is what is happening here at this time, often we get to do
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with it because we heard it straight from you. through e-mail. you might say, i don't have your e-mail address, how to live by you? you can go to our web site and you can find it there. our business has changed so much because of self bones. you are at the place where something is happening. if you without a phone and take a picture, with your permission, you get there before we get there. there was a big crash write in the heart of the financial district. we heard about it, but there was so much traffic, we could not get there. my colleague said that if anybody can see this, take a picture and send it to us. there is a man on the twenty
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fourth floor looking out the window with his camera. took a picture, looked at it, send it to us, we had it on the air and a couple of minutes. because of technology, because of things changing so rapidly. it is a brand new world. vicki, thank you for the importance of that network and everything else. thank you. next, i want to introduce you to a gentleman. he is tall, dark, handsome. sorry, that was me. wrong script. [laughter] you, too, right? it's your birthday, right? ok. in all seriousness, a gentleman by the name of dmitri is here. i want you to meet him. his name is dmitri belzer.
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he has worked in the disability community for years providing technology access for more than 30 years. trained as a sign language expert and interpreter, he established a death services program ast san francisco state university, provided support services for colleges. we don't call them disabled. they happen to have a disability. he joined pacific bell, helped organize honda the advisory group for people that happen to have a disability. he gave them put to that company on how to develop features that will help them do better. he became the director of death and disabled services. he was executive director for berkeley in 2001.
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under dmitri's direction, they have expanded it, they have done so many different things. i can't even less the mall. he sends people out that happen to be disabled and of a test things. before they get out there, to make sure that they are done the right way. so they can practically help people. it is my pleasure right now. give a warm welcome cojones -- to mr. dmitri belzer. [applause]
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>> thank you, dave. i just decided who will be giving this speech that my memorial service, that is a great introduction. i want to talk to them about how people with disabilities use computers. the first and want to talk about is my family. i come from a family of eastern european immigrants. they were mostly born in europe, all of my grandparents were born there. when my grandparents came here, they were older people. english was not something they were very interested in. my grandparents spoke russian, romanian, yiddish, and german. a sixth language? no way. they learned english, but they were never comfortable with it and they forgot it as soon as
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they could. my parents didn't speak english either, but they were going to live their lives in this country so they've learned it. they always spoken with a heavy accent and was something that was always a struggle for them. as they got older, they didn't want to do it anymore. my father spoke his last words in yiddish. we are born here, my native english speakers. i think you can mostly understand me. what i think about technology, i see a parallel and my family because i think about my parents, my parents have really become my grandparents' generation. if technology is something they did not want to learn.
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boy, would she like to forget it. she hates technology. we have really become a skilled computer users because we have had to. it is something we have had to learn, and we speak technology with an accent. we don't really know it intuitively. i looked at my kids, they are native speakers. they use it, it is intuitive. it is an intuitive feeling that they have that most of us don't. we think about this issue a lot because when you are working with people with disabilities and people with different kinds of stresses, you have to adjust your thinking to who you're talking to and who you are working with. or work is shaped by to beliefs. the first is that we had no reason to talk about this ability with technology.
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disabilities' exist because of the -- i don't ask the client what their disability is because it is irrelevant. what do you want to deal on a computer? the print is too small, we can fix that. the mouse or the keyboard is too difficult, try this. try speech input, we will try different things to get the technology to work. the technology is what creates a disability. the other believe that we have is that it is important to step back from what we know at listen to our clients. has to stop putting our beliefs on them. we have to look at where people are coming from with technology. and figure out what the issues
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are that they are having. the big question that we often asked is, when someone is struggling, is that a disability issue or a learning curve issue? we find that the disability issues are the easy fixes. the small print, hard to use a mouse, all of that is very easy to fix. the learning curve issues are really the hard ones for most people. most seniors and don't have a tool box of strategies for dealing with technology. we were more able to figure things out. i may not know where the downloads folder is, but i know it exists. i might have trouble finding it, but i know it is there. for someone that doesn't speak technology as well as i do, they don't know how to look for it.
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if you are someone i have an analogy for you. how many people here can drive? you will be happy to know i do not. for all of you who drive, have you rented cars? when you rent a car, you get into a car you are unfamiliar with. how did you drive it? you do not know where everything is. you do not know where the high beam indicator is or where the turn signals are or any of those kind of things, but you know they are there. you have the language to drive that car because you know what to look for. you know every car has turn signals, so you are going to look for it. when my parents bought their first car that had a locking gas cap, it had a door over the gas cap. they went to get gas, and they could not open it. it was because the release for it was by the driver's seat, and it never occurred to them.
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it was just not a place they would look. they look for the key, for the lever. my father reached into the glove compartment, pulled out a screwdriver, and broke the lock to put gas in the car. an experienced computer user is going to know if they are having trouble, they will go to the control panel and look for what is there, but someone who does not know what a control panel is -- they have no language to ask for it. another issue we find with a lot of seniors in particular is a high level of frustration with technology. i talked to my mother about this all the time. my mother hates technology, and she has had to learn so much. i had a conversation with her the other day, and she was naming all the things she has had to learn, all the things she owns, all the things she hates. things like her dvd player, her vcr, or microwave, herself
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phone, her cordless phone -- there are so many things she has had to learn. in the senior center where she lives, she said the most commonly used assisted technology is a two-inch-long piece of black ls will take, used to cover the flashing light on the vcr and the dvd player -- black electrical tape. she says it is easier the learning to program the clock. for the most part, a lot of seniors to not trust technology. people have gotten the word that there are risks to using technology, and a lot of seniors want to stay away from it. as much as i want to get my mother to do online banking and paying her bills, never going to happen. she is never going to do that. at the center for accessible technology, we work to understand the mindset of our clients, and as a result, we have systems in place of how we work with them. one of the things we do is we
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asked people -- what do you want to use a computer for? i cannot tell you how many people tell us they have never been asked that. they have been told they need to use a computer, but no one has told the what they need it for. sometimes we hear that people do not have anything they want to use it for, but a lot of times, they have something in particular. we tried to focus on something that will give them early success. so they are going to be able to have some success with the computer. if someone wants to be able to e-mail their grandchildren so they can get pictures of their grandkids, they will be motivated to push past their technology fear for that. at least i keep telling my mother that. but we also have to recognize that one of the things that happens is people come in who have been using technology, and they have their own systems for use in it, and we let them. we do not try to change how
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people are using it. an example of that is my grandmother. she was a wonderful baker. i miss her, but i miss her baked goods more. she never had used a still in the old country that had thermostat. she would turn the stove on all the way to broil, and it would heat up like a furnace, and then she would turn it off, and then put her stuff in and cook it. if it got too cold, she would turn it on again. it drove my parents crazy, but she made wonderful food. she was never going to learn this technology, but she had adapted to it. we recognize that people do that. if people have something that works, you leave it alone. another issue that people have on computers is -- and it is a real frustration for a lot of seniors -- that things do not show up in the same place. we try to set up people's computers so that it is recognizable. if you are using a macintosh,
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and it has the dock that has all the controls on it, you set it up so that it is always visible. you put the icons in place so they will always show up, so they are always recognizable. i gave my mother recently and ipad, and it is a brilliant piece of technology for seniors because it only has one button on the front of it. if you do not know what to do, you press that and go back to the home screen and start over. she really loves that. another important piece is ergonomics. people forget this a lot, but ergonomics is hugely important. a real reason why people stop using computers is because they say they heard. if you did not set up some computer system so they can use it ergonomically, i will -- it will heighten the chances for their failure. we tell people it is okay to ask questions peer the problem with that is one to tell someone it is ok to ask questions, you then have to make it okay to ask questions.
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when my mother asked me for the 312th time, "how do i attach a picture to an e-mail?" i have to stop myself from going, like -- and it is difficult sometimes. they'll say the same things over again, but it is an important part of technological success. in preparing for this speech, i thought about how a lot of people here are pretty experienced technology users, but i am recognizing that most of us are, if you will pardon my saying this, a little on the older side. how can i get you all to understand what it is like to use a computer for our parents and for seniors who have never done it? i have a great way. go home and find a 14-year-old boy and ask him to play a video game. i have done this with both of my sons when they were younger, and it is an amazing experience. my kids will be playing a game, which i